Canopus ADVC-100 problem with VHS-EP tapes

[rmnowick]

All,
I used my Canopus strictly for Tivo archiving up till now. Never had a problem, never dropped a single frame. Today I started capturing VHS output. The first tape was all recorded in SP and the 2 hours transferred fine. A second tape I tried had about 40 minutes of SP then switched to EP. The Canopus froze right there, and stopped recording.

When I went back to the SP section it worked fine, and then I fast forwarded a few minutes into the EP section to make sure it wasn't the transition that was the problem. As soon as I started playing the EP the Canopus froze again. Seemed very strange cause it is just another analog input source albeit somewhat less quality. The Canopus shouldn't care.

I thought that maybe my new VCR was the problem but when I connected the VCR outputs to the TV, both the SP and EP sections played and looked fine. Anyone ever have a problem like this?

Thanks,
Robert

[redwudz]

I've used the ADVC-100 to convert from 6HR VHS tapes with no problems. I just have a cheap JVC VCR. Not sure what could be causing your problem. My LP tapes have crappy quality with 3 movies on each. With extensive filtering (adds about 5 hours to a TMPGEnc encode), they look about as good as VCD when encoded. I've never had the ADVC quit on me during a transfer.

[yodel]

During the "switch" from LP to EP, there's a sync signal loss,
you should start the tape within the EP "section", and then start your capture, everything should be o.k. then.

o.k. just read the message again, and understand this isn't the
problem, sorry, can you switch on/off any filters on the vcr ?
or, has the "capture" prog. the correct tv format settings ?
Did you also try the "MacroVision cheat mode" of the ADVC100 ?
or try using the S-Video input of the ADVC100, with the small adapter
cable. that comes with the ADVC100.

Just tried to capture a EP recording myself, and this gave no problems,
both on Comp. or S-video input. (quality is low though)

[redwudz]

That 'adapter' just converts the rear input to composite, although I use it to keep cables from hanging out of the front of the box. I have heard that it works better for composite than the front input, and it's works fine for me, but I never seen any confirmation of it being better. Rmnowick, you might try a tape that is all EP and see if that makes any difference.

[rmnowick]

Thanks Guys,
I'm on another tape right now, which is working fine. I will try the S-Video suggestion should the problem happen again. In any case, I will follow this up with the final resolution in case someone else runs into the same hurdle.

Robert

[au7usa]

I know the ADVC300 has a built in Time Base Corrector, but does the ADVC100?

Maybe the data has become illegal at the transition point.

Do you know anyone with a video enhancer you could borrow?
(no guarantee it would work though)

[yodel]

I know the ADVC300 has a built in Time Base Corrector, but does the ADVC100?

Maybe the data has become illegal at the transition point.

Do you know anyone with a video enhancer you could borrow?
(no guarantee it would work though)

The ADVC100 has no TBC, that's the price difference, i guess,
that's why i bought the HR-S8960, i still had no SVHS recorder, so
it was a kind of midway solution for me, and i'm happy with it,
still have a lot VHS tapes here, to transfer, before i defenite go
"digital" in the living room, i guess D-VHS doesn't reach Europe

[Oliver]

I'm converting my old VHS-C tapes, and am having similar problems. The first 2 I've tried resulted in dropped frames and audio static in the saved .avi file. But when I checked the tapes and played them back directly on my TV, they look fine.

My problem is slightly different in that I'm using the ADVC-50 (internal version of ADVC-100), and my captures don't freeze. I just get dropped frames and audio static throughout the resulting DV video. And if it matters, I'm capturing with WinDV, which always reports 0 frames dropped.

Seeing this similar problem, I'm wondering if it's related to the fact that these VHS-C tapes are recorded in EP. I'm playing them with a relatively new SVHS JVC VCR, connected to the ADVC-50 with a high quality S-Video cable. Prior to this, I've captured recent recordings I've made in SP with absolutely no problems whatsoever.

I tried retentioning these VHS-C tapes, and cleaned the heads of my VCR, and still get the problem. Interestingly, I did a test capture of just the problem section, and it came out perfect. So I thought the head cleaning and retentioning fixed it, but when I captured the entire tape, the same problem resulted.

I'm going to next try disabling the auto video calibration settings of my VCR. I don't think it has a TBC, but I do know it has these calibration settings that may be throwing off the ADVC-50. Next I'll try a differect VCR. If that doesn't work, the only other thing I can think of to try next is to dub the videos over to another tape in SP, and capture from the copy. I hope it doesn't come to that, as I would lose a little quality, but it would be better than having bad sections in the video.

Anyone have any other ideas?

[Oliver]

One other factor in my problem is that the tapes I'm converting are almost 10 years old. They still play fine and look great for being VHS though, but it may help explain the issues I'm having.

Last night I disabled the following on my JVC SVHS VCR: Video Calibration & Video Stabilizer. I captured my tape again in its entirety. When I played back the problematic section in the .avi file, it looked fine. I didn't have time to watch the entire video to check for problems, but upon this initial check it looks like I solved my problem.

I'm guessing that since these tapes are old, the auto tracking features of my VCR kick in, and while they may correct problems detected for good playback on a TV, they throw off the ADVC-50.

I'll post my final conclusions after I do further testing and capturing, but hopefully I've nailed this.